“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for

Modern IT Specialists

Viktoriia V. Bolotina

1 a

, Tetiana A. Vakaliuk

1,2,3,4 b

, Olha R. Harbych-Moshora

5 c

and

Valerii V. Kontsedailo

6 d

Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University, 103 Chudnivska Str., Zhytomyr, 10005, Ukraine

Institute for Digitalisation of Education of the NAES of Ukraine, 9 M. Berlynskoho Str., Kyiv, 04060, Ukraine

Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, 54 Gagarin Ave., Kryvyi Rih, 50086, Ukraine

Academy of Cognitive and Natural Sciences, 54 Gagarin Ave., Kryvyi Rih, 50086, Ukraine

Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University, Street Ivan Franko, 24, Drohobych, 82100, Ukraine

Inner Circle, Nieuwendijk 40, 1012 MB Amsterdam, Netherlands

Keywords:

Branding Theory, Design, Identity, IT Specialist, Laboratory Work, Brand Book, Brand Formation, Survey,

Methodology, Creative Approach, Graphic Editors.

Abstract:

This article contains a description of the author’s methodology for teaching the course “Branding Theory,

Design, and Identity”. The article provides a list of topics studied by students. The results of students’ work,

their achievements, and analysis of the results of the teacher’s work are described. The main goal in the

development of the methodology is the formation of a high-quality IT specialist with the ability to approach

the solution to various problems creatively. To achieve this goal, students are offered to work on one original

topic within the framework of laboratory work. As a result, students prepare and present the brand book of

their own company, having gone through all the stages of brand formation. The article presents the results

of a survey of students on the quality of the proposed methodology, and positive and negative aspects of the

teaching of the course are identiﬁed. Based on our observations, the methodology can be considered accurate,

because, during the training, students showed the ability to creatively approach tasks, easily master various

graphic editors and successfully combine them in practice.

1 INTRODUCTION

The modern world requires modern approaches in all

areas of human activity. Ukraine and the world need

high-quality specialists in all areas who can quickly,

creatively, and efﬁciently solve non-standard tasks

that humanity faces. Each future specialist in a dif-

ferent ﬁeld, especially in the IT ﬁeld, should always

be ready to solve super-complex tasks, using the abil-

ity to analyze, make quick decisions, and ﬁnd non-

standard ways out of the current situation.

When preparing IT specialists, one should take

into account the requirements of the labor market, and

the relevance of the studied technologies that employ-

ers need. It is also important to form competencies

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5122-8879

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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6463-370X

that will help a future specialist to make a signiﬁ-

cant contribution to the development of the IT sector

(Vakaliuk et al., 2020, 2021b).

Modern trends in the development of professional

training of future IT specialists include specialization

of education, substantiation of its content, multi-level

nature, the formation of professional competencies

and qualities, the ﬂexibility of curricula, strengthen-

ing the practical orientation, the introduction of in-

formation technology in education, the involvement

of interactive teaching methods, the individualization

of teaching staff with high scientiﬁc and pedagogi-

cal potential, capable of productive professional com-

munication in the ﬁeld of IT education (Varava et al.,

2021).

The development of creativity also contributes to a

better solution to programming problems. The forma-

tion of a specialist as a creative person capable of self-

development, self-education, and innovation is one of

Bolotina, V., Vakaliuk, T., Harbych-Moshora, O. and Kontsedailo, V.

“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for Modern IT Specialists.

DOI: 10.5220/0012660100003737

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning (ICHTML 2023), pages 191-203

ISBN: 978-989-758-579-1; ISSN: 2976-0836

191

the main tasks of higher education. The main focus

of the work of teachers preparing IT specialists is to

create conditions for the creative activity of students,

while it is only necessary to stimulate the desire for

creativity inherent in everyone. The organization of

the educational process with the inclusion of elements

of creative activity will make it possible to educate a

comprehensively developed specialist who will have

an innovative approach to future professional activi-

ties.

The main focus of the work of teachers prepar-

ing IT specialists is to create conditions for the cre-

ative activity of students, while it is only necessary

to stimulate the desire for creativity inherent in ev-

eryone. The organization of the educational process

with the inclusion of elements of creative activity will

make it possible to educate a comprehensively devel-

oped specialist who will have an innovative approach

to future professional activities.

In preparation for the research, an analysis of

curricula and educational programs of students of

IT majors was carried out, in particular, major 122

“Computer Science” Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic Na-

tional University, specialty 121 “Software Engineer-

ing” Kharkiv National University of Radio Electron-

ics, specialty 121 “Software Engineering” Cherkasy

Bohdan Khmelnytskyi National University, specialty

121 “Software Engineering” National Technical Uni-

versity “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”, specialty 122

“Computer Science” Lviv Polytechnic National Uni-

versity. The courses in these educational programs,

in most cases, of a technical orientation and do not

involve creative approaches to solving the tasks. In

particular, to a greater extent in all higher education

institutions, subjects related to programming are key,

while graduates of IT specialties are in demand not

only in the market of programmers, but also in the

ﬁeld of design and computer graphics. As a result,

there is a need to implement new teaching methods

that contribute to the formation of creative and cre-

ative competencies in students of IT specialties.

Creative courses in the training of IT specialists

contribute to the formation of such competencies as

the ability to apply knowledge in practical situations;

the ability to generate new ideas (creativity); ability

to search, process and analyze information from dif-

ferent sources.

At the Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University,

students of the IT industry study the course “Brand-

ing Theory, Design, and Identity” (by the training cur-

riculum specialty 122 “ Computer Science”). When

studying this course, students often turn to creative

research, develop analytical skills, and independently

go through the entire life cycle of a brand. After com-

pleting the course, students can work in the direction

of design, namely the development of corporate iden-

tity or promotional products.

2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

The problem of high-quality training of IT special-

ists in the current state of digitalization of society is

raised in many scientiﬁc papers. For the formation

of different competencies in the professional training

of IT specialists, scientists consider different method-

ologies.

Petrenko et al. (2020) describes the use of peda-

gogical crowd technologies in the professional train-

ing of future information technology specialists and

also analyzes the impact of using mobile devices and

online services when learning foreign languages. The

authors have developed an experimental conceptual

model for the use of pedagogical crowd technologies

(Petrenko et al., 2020). The article states that train-

ing using crowd technologies implies a general set of

pedagogical conditions aimed at developing the nec-

essary competencies for the professional activities of

IT specialists in the future. The authors conducted

an experiment, which proved the feasibility of using

modern online services at all stages of the educational

process when formulating a goal, learning new mate-

rial, and controlling knowledge. It is also possible

to simultaneously use different types of a crowd –

crowd teaching, and crowd assessment both in a com-

plex and each type separately. The effectiveness of

the introduction of the conceptual use of pedagogical

crowd-technologies is indicative: the level of moti-

vation has increased and the cognitive interest of stu-

dents and their activity in the classroom has increased,

work in groups became coordinated, and relationships

became trusting (Petrenko et al., 2020).

The works of Striuk et al. describes the experi-

ence of the Department of Simulation Software Engi-

neering of the Kryvyi Rih National University in solv-

ing the problems of training IT specialists in modern

conditions, and the author presents the main trends

and technologies that are advanced for the formation

of well-trained specialists who become competitive

in the market. Students take part in projects and re-

ceive high-quality training that allows them to en-

ter the working environment of the IT market with

a formed set of knowledge and skills necessary for a

successful start of their career in IT companies (Striuk

and Semerikov, 2019, 2022; Striuk et al., 2022).

To determine the main approaches and teaching

methods for IT specialists, it is important to iden-

tify the most common problems that future special-

ICHTML 2023 - International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning

192

ists face during the development of the course. The

works by Vakaliuk et al. describes the problems of

professional training of future IT specialists in the ed-

ucational and information environment of a technical

university. The authors notes that the processes that

are constantly changing the education system and ap-

proach to learning and teaching signiﬁcantly affect

the formation of the competencies of future special-

ists. The authors refers to such problems as the rapid

updating of knowledge. The main task that is set for

higher education institutions in the training of IT spe-

cialists is to quickly adapt to dynamically changing

conditions. Students are required to independently

acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for suc-

cessful work, apply them in practice to solve various

problems; independently, critically think, be able to

see the problems that arise in reality, and look for ra-

tional ways to solve them using modern technologies;

work efﬁciently with information to solve the tasks;

be able to work in teams that bring together specialists

from different ﬁelds of knowledge (Vakaliuk, 2021;

Vakaliuk et al., 2021a, 2023).

To constantly improve the methods of training IT

specialists, various areas of education should be in-

troduced. The book of Duran et al. (2015) reports

the results of a three-year research program funded by

the National Science Foundation which targeted stu-

dents and teachers from four Detroit high schools in

order for them to learn, experience, and use IT within

the context of STEM (IT/STEM), and explore 21st

century career and educational pathways. The book

discusses the accomplishment of these goals through

the creation of a Community of Designers – an en-

vironment in which high school students and teach-

ers, undergraduate/graduate student assistants, and

STEM area faculty and industry experts worked to-

gether as a cohesive team. The program created four

project-based design teams, one for each STEM area.

Each team had access to two year-round IT/STEM en-

richment experiences to create high-quality learning

projects, strategies, and curriculum models. These

strategies were applied in after school, weekend, and

summer settings through hands-on, inquiry-based ac-

tivities with a strong emphasis on non-traditional ap-

proaches to learning and understanding.

Szymkowiak et al. (2021) describes the impor-

tance of using modern information technologies in

the preparation of students in different areas. The au-

thors point out that the Internet represents an impor-

tant place as a “source of expansion of horizons”.

In preparing high-quality future specialists, a fun-

damental principle is an accessible education for ev-

eryone. As noted Haleem et al. (2022), one of the fun-

damental components of the UN sustainable develop-

ment agenda until 2030 is quality education. It aims

to provide inclusive and equitable quality education

for all. Information technology has become an im-

portant tool for achieving this goal. The study exam-

ines questions aimed at determining the importance of

introducing information technologies into the educa-

tional process, and what changes can be achieved as a

result.

The most important indicator of the quality of the

university is the rate of employment of graduates after

graduation from higher education. For graduates to

be ready for employment in the company, the learn-

ing process must go beyond the formation of skills

and the transfer of knowledge, and the existing com-

petencies must meet the requirements of the market.

Albina and Sumagaysay (2020) explores the employ-

ment of graduates of information technology educa-

tion at a public university in the Philippines.

Weng et al. (2022) explores the issue of the for-

mation of creativity and entrepreneurship of students

through real education based on the creation of prob-

lems. The study identiﬁed how real-world problem

tasks contributed to student creativity in the dimen-

sions of novelty, usefulness, aesthetics, authenticity,

and entrepreneurship in the areas of ideas and op-

portunities, resources, and activities throughout the

learning stages. The development of creativity is an

important aspect of the education of students of vari-

ous specialties, including technical ones.

Higher education institutions work closely with

specialized companies interested in high-quality per-

sonnel – university graduates. There is a close rela-

tionship between the software development industry

and IT education. Cico et al. (2021) explores the main

trends in software engineering in the academic envi-

ronment. In the course of the study, the authors notes

that trends such as software adoption, usability, and

global software engineering are relatively small in the

academic community, and also that there are certain

differences between the ﬁeld of software engineering

development and the training of IT specialists.

However, teaching creative courses to IT profes-

sionals has not yet been studied, and therefore re-

quires attention.

The purpose of the article is to describe the au-

thor’s methodology for teaching the course “Branding

Theory, Design, and Identity” and to study its feasi-

bility in the training of modern IT specialists.

3 METHODS

We used the following methods to conduct the re-

search:

“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for Modern IT Specialists

193

• A systematic method and explanation for describ-

ing the methodology of teaching the course “The-

ory of Branding, Design and Identity”.

• Visual methods for a visual demonstration of the

results of students’ work on assigned tasks within

the framework of laboratory work and display of

the results of the use of project presentation tools.

• Survey, to conduct a questionnaire to determine

the expediency of the implemented methodology

for teaching the course “Theory of Branding, De-

sign and Identity”.

4 RESULTS

When preparing IT specialists, an important aspect is

the development of the creative skills of future spe-

cialists. The labor market in the ﬁeld of information

technology is constantly changing, as are the criteria

for selecting employees.

As part of the course “Branding Theory, Design

and Identity”, the main goal is to prepare high-quality

specialists in the direction of developing a corporate

identity and developing the creative abilities of spe-

cialists studying technical specialties.

The purpose of the course is to familiarize stu-

dents with the basic concepts and established units

of corporate identity development, branding, and cor-

porate identity, the practical use of graphic editors

to create an identity; development of a brand book,

familiarization with the main stages of the presenta-

tion of the project, and working with the customer; to

get acquainted with the concept of “corporate style”,

“guideline”, “brand”, and “naming”.

After completing the course, students will be able

to demonstrate real corporate identity development

solutions and learn to analyze the elements and com-

ponents of corporate identity. In addition, the im-

plementation of all laboratory work implies the de-

velopment of a full cycle of corporate identity. In

the theoretical blocks of the course, students get ac-

quainted with the main stages of working with a cus-

tomer, the theory of presentation, and the defense of

their project.

Here is an indicative list of topics for studying this

course:

1. Introduction. The concept of branding, corporate

identity, and corporate style. Basic concepts of

branding. Brand building. The concept of iden-

tity. Features of the use of corporate identity. Ele-

ments of the corporate identity of the company.

2. Types of computer graphics. Work with vector

graphics. Resources for creating your own corpo-

rate identity. Work with color and text in Adobe

Illustrator. Work with primitives.

3. Logo. Corporate style constants. Graphic image.

History of logos. Symbolism in the brand name.

Stages of creating a logo. Types of logos. Classi-

ﬁcation and semantic overload of corporate sym-

bols.

4. Logo. Formation of a palette of corporate colors

and fonts. Selection of font pairs in the logo. Psy-

chology of color perception. The semantic load of

color in the system of corporate identity.

5. Corporate business documentation. Design rules.

Development of business documentation, and its

role in the corporate identity system. Business

cards as a means of communication. Letterhead

and business identiﬁcation. Corporate envelopes

and folders.

6. Work with raster graphics. Mockup. How to cre-

ate a mockup. Processing existing presentation

templates through raster graphics editors.

7. Rules for the design of outdoor advertising. Types

of outdoor advertising. Stages of development.

Formation of an advertising offer. The effective-

ness of advertising media.

8. Combination of raster and vector graphics.

Graphic techniques in advertising. Combination

of vector and raster graphics in design layouts.

Work with vector graphics in a raster graphics ed-

itor. Creation of advertising compositions.

9. Corporate website and advertising on the Internet.

Types of corporate websites. Stages of creation.

Creation of a corporate blog using online design-

ers. Advertising on websites and the Internet.

10. Composition and visual hierarchy in web design.

Rules for constructing a visual composition. Prin-

ciples of building web page architecture. Selec-

tion of fonts and colors for the website.

11. Point of sale. POS types. Ways to inﬂuence the

buyer. Printed advertising products.

12. Brand book development, design rules. Types of

brand books. Basic design rules. Image and visual

component. The guideline, logo book.

13. Work with the customer. Principles of project pre-

sentation.

14. Corporate periodicals. Advertising in the media

space. Types of corporate periodicals. Types of

media advertising, principles of creation.

When studying the ﬁrst topic, students get ac-

quainted with the concept of branding and corporate

identity. When entering the course, special attention

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is paid to the review of existing brands, the study of

the history of the creation of their corporate identity,

and changes in the process of rebranding. For a more

detailed immersion in the concept of branding and

consolidation of the studied stages, students need to

prepare a presentation using free software on the topic

“Corporate Identity of a World Famous Brand”. As a

result of completing the task, students form the im-

age of the brand and understand the approaches to its

creation.

The unique approach to performing laboratory

work in this course is that each student works on his

topic throughout the course, which provides an in-

dividual approach to completing tasks. In the ﬁrst

lesson, students are invited to choose their topic and

develop terms of reference for working on a brand

book on the chosen topic. The theme can be any non-

existent company or one that was created recently and

does not have its own corporate identity.

Analyzing the results of students after studying

the ﬁrst topic, one should pay attention to the fact that

at this stage of mastering the course, when preparing

a presentation about one of the well-known brands,

students learn to make a creative search, analyze the

existing corporate identity, separate its main compo-

nents and present it. Another important skill to be

formed is the ability to set clear goals and require-

ments for your future project in the form of a technical

assignment.

The next stage in the work of students is to gain

skills in working with vector graphics, which be-

comes the basis for creating corporate identity con-

stants. To consolidate the acquired skills, students

create illustrations using a vector graphics editor.

Also, one of the tasks of the next topic is to prepare

background images for the upcoming presentation on

the previously selected topic.

The result of the work is a set of vector images

created using a vector graphics editor. Tasks of this

type allow you to learn new tools that will be useful

in future work. When creating illustrations, students

learn to choose shades and build a composition. Some

of the students of the course, as practice shows, de-

part from the proposed samples and create new or im-

proved existing illustrations, which indicates the man-

ifestation of creativity and independence in work.

The basis of the entire course is the third theme.

It is built in such a way that after completing all the

tasks, students receive the basic elements of corporate

identity, based on which the entire corporate identity

is raised.

The ﬁrst task of this theme is to create a mood

board as a means of conveying mood and design style

ﬁgure 1. The next important stage in the work of stu-

dents is the study of a competitive market in their

chosen ﬁeld. By doing research, you can ensure a

high-quality and unique design, while avoiding pla-

giarism in the name and stylistic features. After con-

ducting preparatory studies, students move on to the

most important stage in the development of a corpo-

rate identity – a logo. To begin with, sketches are de-

veloped based on reference projects selected by stu-

dents. From the sketches, one version of the logo is

selected, which is necessarily ﬁnalized and presented.

In the technical part of the corporate identity con-

stants section, an important point is the technical re-

quirements for using the logo in all corporate-style

media. Students prepare requirements for the mini-

mum distance between the logo and stylistic elements

in layouts, and provide for the design of unacceptable

options for using the logo, namely, changing colors,

deleting existing or adding new graphic objects, dis-

proportionate transformation, etc. (ﬁgure 2).

During the study of this topic, students form a

palette of corporate colors with a description of the

stylistic load and select font pairs, indicating their

combination and use in advertising, souvenirs, and

branded business documentation.

When studying this topic, again, as experience

shows, students present a whole range of develop-

ments on their topic, which involves several stages.

To begin with, market research, competitors, and the

uniqueness of the product or service are presented.

At the same time, the concept of work is based on

a thorough study of the topic and the history of the

product. Most of the student’s present hand-drawn

logo sketches in their work, indicating that the stu-

dents were keen to develop a truly own and unique

logo. When selecting colors, students use specialized

resources such as Adobe Color (Adobe, 2023), as well

as build a color palette based on theoretical material

on the topic of the lecture “Color Theory”. As part of

this work, students selected font pairs, as a result of

which a clear distribution of typefaces for use in the

logo and use in business documentation was demon-

strated.

After the development and technical description

of corporate identity constants, students proceed to

the design of business documentation (ﬁgure 3). In

preparation for this stage, students learn how to cor-

rectly present their work using a mockup. A mockup

is a special layout, an image of a real object, on which

a design element is superimposed: a logo, a cover, a

screenshot, and so on. Mockups allow you to imme-

diately see how the object will look in reality.

It is important to note that students are encouraged

to use resources with stock raster and vector images

throughout their study of the “Branding Theory, De-

“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for Modern IT Specialists

195

Figure 1: Mood board example.

sign and Identity” course to use their resources in their

designs. Namely, Unsplash (unsplash.com, 2023)

is a stock of bitmap ﬁles, Pixabay (pixabay.com,

2023) is a storage of bitmap graphics, and Freepick

(freepik.com, 2023) is a stock for searching source

ﬁles of vector and bitmap graphics. Students also

use well-known portfolio sites to keep track of cur-

rent corporate identity design trends.

The next step in creating the identity of the se-

lected company, students to develop corporate busi-

ness documentation. The task consists of design-

ing business cards, and letterhead, and designing en-

velopes for correspondence. A business card is cre-

ated, at the choice of the student, personal or general

for the company. The letterhead is submitted for veri-

ﬁcation in two versions – the main and the black-and-

white version. Branded envelopes are presented in C6

and Euro formats. When developing corporate busi-

ness documentation, students adhere to the corporate

style, colors, and fonts selected earlier. When pre-

senting all elements, mockups are used, the style of

which reﬂects the mood of the company.

Expanding the set of corporate identity elements,

students move on to creating layouts for advertising

media – billboards, and signboards (ﬁgure 4). When

getting acquainted with the topic of External adver-

tising, an important step is to get acquainted with

the principles of creating a unique advertising offer,

the principles of advertising design, and matching the

layout to the corporate style. The outdoor advertis-

ing media provided for creation clearly show the rules

for using corporate identity in advertising. During the

presentation of layouts, students test for compliance

with the design and localization of the advertising me-

dia site.

Advertising design is a new direction for students.

When developing advertising layouts, each of the stu-

dents analyzes the existing, high-quality, and popular

advertising forms their advertising offers and presents

them on the appropriate sites. The results of the work,

ICHTML 2023 - International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning

196

Figure 2: Logo red lines example.

as experience shows, are very diverse in terms of the

creative potential of each of the students and their

skills as graphic editors.

Another important direction in the corporate style

of the company is the dissemination of information

about the brand on the Internet. Online advertising

occupies an important place in brand promotion, and

the design of a corporate website is an indispensable

condition for the formation of the integrity of corpo-

rate identity. Students, using the software, make out

the main page of the corporate website. One of the

types of corporate web resources is selected by the

theme. When designing the main page of the site,

students must follow the rules of their own corporate

identity and corporate style, use corporate colors and

fonts, displaying the company’s theme in the smallest

“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for Modern IT Specialists

197

Figure 3: Documentation example.

Figure 4: Billboard example.

details of web design. The next task is to develop ban-

ners for advertising on the Internet. In banners, stu-

dents form three different promotional offers to pro-

mote the company on web pages and social networks.

ICHTML 2023 - International Conference on History, Theory and Methodology of Learning

198

The result of the work is the presentation of the cor-

porate website design and a set of three banners for

advertising on the Internet.

When performing this work, the adaptability of

students in the use of various software tools and web

resources is observed. Students are encouraged to use

available website builders and online editors to cre-

ate interface prototypes. At the same time, students

also demonstrate how the corporate identity of the

company works on web resources of various types,

which is an important step in the development of cor-

porate identity because at present the main promotion

of companies occurs through the Internet.

The ﬁnal stage is the development of a line of sou-

venirs, a set of packaging, and the development of a

design for branded clothing for employees (ﬁgure 5).

The elements of souvenir products for each student

may differ, depending on the correspondence between

the theme of the project and souvenir products. Sou-

venirs, branded packaging, and clothing are designed

by students by their own corporate identity.

When demonstrating souvenirs, packaging, and

branded clothing, students use mockup ﬁles. The

main requirement was that students use a mockup of

the same style, ﬁt their subject, and the general con-

cept of corporate identity.

The ﬁnal work of the course “Branding Theory,

Design and Identity” is the formation of a company’s

brand book on the chosen topic, on which students

worked individually during the course. Valid project

presentation options are a printed version, an elec-

tronic version in PDF, or a brand book in the form

of a website. All parts of the corporate identity are

presented as ﬁle mockups. In the working version

of the brand book, students include the following

sections: about the company; logo; corporate col-

ors; corporate fonts; business documentation (busi-

ness card, letterhead, envelope); outdoor advertis-

ing (billboard, signboard); souvenir products (at least

three units); branded packaging (at least three units);

branded clothing.

When submitting the ﬁnal project, each student

will present his work on all the requirements for the

presentation of projects in IT companies (see ﬁg-

ure 6). As part of the lectures, students are provided

with material for working with the customer, the ba-

sics of creating technical speciﬁcations, and brieﬁng.

To determine the appropriateness of the teaching

methodology for this course, we analyzed two ﬁnal

works of students in the course “Branding Theory,

Design and Identity”. Each student studied full-time

and completed a full course of lecture material and

laboratory work. As a result, the company’s brand

book on a unique theme was submitted for review.

The ﬁrst work for analysis was the work on the

topic “Beast Gym Sports Club”. “Beast Gym” – a

network of gyms for people mainly from 12 years

old of any category, interested in maintaining phys-

ical health, improving health, and changing lifestyles.

The main goal is to provide training services, spread

the ideas of a healthy lifestyle, and help achieve sports

goals (ﬁgure 7).

The chosen stylistic design of the brand book is

fully consistent with the chosen theme. The logo as a

corporate identity constant is completely accurate and

reﬂects the style and character of the institution. The

symbol in the logo consists of the image of a lion and

a dumbbell, which he holds in his teeth.

The technical description of the use of corporate

identity constants is complete, there are examples

of business documentation, outdoor advertising, sou-

venirs, branded packaging, and clothing.

The following work is done in a classic, minimal-

ist style. The theme of the work is “Black Rabbit Bar-

bershop Network” (ﬁgure 8).

All requirements have been met. It should be

noted that the student completed a complete descrip-

tion of the history of brand creation, which is an im-

portant step in the formation of corporate identity and

corporate style. The brand book contains all the re-

quired sections, and the results of the work are pre-

sented in the form of a mockup.

It should be noted that the reviewed works were

completed in compliance with all requirements, tak-

ing into account the theoretical material of the lec-

tures. However, each of the works is unique in its

theme, style, and technical description, which in-

dicates that when developing brand books, students

used a creative approach to work, laboratory work

was able to form the ability to generate new ideas,

engage in creative search and bring ideas to life.

5 DISCUSSION

To determine the feasibility of the introduced method-

ology for teaching the course “Branding Theory, De-

sign and Identity”, an anonymous survey of students

trained according to this methodology was conducted.

Applicants for higher education must answer the fol-

lowing questions:

1. Do the course assignments match the lecture ma-

terials and laboratory assignments?

2. Do the topics ﬁt the learning objectives of the

course?

3. Select the topics that you think are 100% neces-

sary.

“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for Modern IT Specialists

199

Figure 5: Branded clothing example.

Figure 6: Business document presentation example.

4. Select topics to remove.

5. Write down what topics you think could be cov-

ered in this course.

6. How interesting was the course for you.

7. What do you remember most about your studies?

40 second-year students of specialty 122 “Com-

puter Science” were involved in the survey. Participa-

tion in the survey was voluntary and anonymous.

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200

Figure 7: “Beast Gym” brand book cover.

Figure 8: “Black Rabbit” brand book cover.

After working through the results of the survey,

it was found that students were happy to study this

course, and all the topics proposed for study are fully

consistent with the goals of the course. Since the stu-

dents who participated in the survey study were only

in the 2nd year, everyone answered the same ques-

tions for 3, 4, and 5 questions (that all topics are

needed for studying, nothing needs to be added and

taken away).

The results of the student survey indicate that it

is difﬁcult for students to adapt quickly to a creative

environment. Part of the students have difﬁculties at

“Branding Theory, Design and Identity” Course Teaching Experience for Modern IT Specialists

201

the stage of forming the topic of the work. This is due

to insufﬁcient immersion in corporate identity trends

of companies of different directions and locations.

Since the beginning of work on the graphic com-

ponent of the brand is the creation of a logo, students

feel a lack of material for forming the concept and

idea of the brand. Formation of the brand’s mission

and philosophy is an important stage in the develop-

ment of corporate identity.

As a solution to this problem, within laboratory

work, which precedes the creation of the logo, stu-

dents are offered to delve into the topic of their

choice:

1. Analyze the relevance of the product or services.

2. Research the competitive market locally.

3. To identify the relevance of the products or ser-

vices offered by them among others on the mar-

ket.

4. Form the target audience and develop user por-

traits.

5. Describe the philosophy of the brand and form a

mission.

The next problem that students face is the presen-

tation of work. After all, the success of the project

as a whole depends on the presentation of the materi-

als. Most students lack oral presentation skills and use

outdated resources to present visual materials. The

solution to this problem is to provide students with

electronic resources of collections of mockups that

they can use in their works.

Regarding what was most memorable when study-

ing this course, the students indicated that it was

the opportunity to use any means (there was no link

to speciﬁc means, which the students liked), the

teacher’s creative approach to tasks, and, accordingly,

students. implementation of the tasks.

Summing up and taking into account the inter-

views of students conducted during the defense of ﬁ-

nal works, the main advantages and disadvantages of

the proposed methodology were identiﬁed. Among

the disadvantages are:

• a complex adaptation of technical students in a

completely creative environment;

• insufﬁcient amount of lecture material for perfect

mastery of graphic editors.

Beneﬁts include:

• improving the skill of oral presentations;

• development of creative thinking;

• elaboration of quite individual thinking;

• application of acquired skills in vocational educa-

tion.

6 CONCLUSIONS

The introduction of creative courses into the curricula

of students studying technical specialties is an inte-

gral part of the formation of a high-quality IT spe-

cialist. When developing the teaching methodology

“Branding Theory, Design, and Identity”, the main re-

quirement was to ensure the formation of the ability to

generate new ideas (creativity) and teach students to

independently search, process, and analyze informa-

tion from various sources. As external resources, stu-

dents are offered services for publishing the work of

designers, including corporate identity design. Dur-

ing the laboratory work, students have the opportunity

to work on a topic of interest to them, developing a de-

sign for that area of activity that interests them, which

as a result increases students’ motivation to perform

laboratory work.

As a result of taking the course “Branding Theory,

Design and Identity”, students learned creative search

and analysis, learned the stages of brand formation.

Each of the course participants developed their own

corporate identity and prepared a working version of

the brand book by the evaluation criteria. The course

methodology allows students to develop such compe-

tencies as the ability to apply knowledge in practical

situations, the ability to generate new ideas (creativ-

ity), and the ability to search, process, and analyze

information from different sources. During the train-

ing, students showed the ability to creatively approach

tasks, easily master different graphic editors and suc-

cessfully combine them in practice.

During the implementation of this methodology,

we discovered some difﬁculties that students face dur-

ing their studies, namely the problem of rapid im-

mersion in the creative space, the insufﬁcient study

of graphic editors, and a noticeable lack of material

for forming the concept and idea of a brand. Each of

these problems will be worked out in detail by the au-

thors in the future, which will allow us to expand the

course by adding new theoretical material and some

practical tasks.

The prospects for further research include the se-

lection of criteria and indicators for the selection of

digital learning tools for studying this course, as well

as to carry out the appropriate expert selection.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was carried out thanks to the named schol-

arship of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for young

scientists – doctors of sciences for the year 2022.

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202

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